


Recombinant

by DHW



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, D/s undertones, Genetic Engineering, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:34:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22229512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DHW/pseuds/DHW
Summary: Recombinant(definition):relating to or denoting an organism, cell or genetic material formed through rearrangement of DNA.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 27
Kudos: 90





	Recombinant

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 한국어 available: [재조합](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009869) by [rusblk_translate (rusblk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rusblk/pseuds/rusblk_translate)



"Sit," he says.

And Garak does. Not because he wants to, but because he is told. If there is one thing he cannot resist, it is an order. It’s simply the way Tain made him.

Dr Bashir commands and Garak complies. Though not without complaint, or a hint of challenge in his voice. He’s never been one to make things easy. There is a beauty in obstinacy that is difficult to find elsewhere.

“Whatever happened to the word _‘please’_?” Garak replies, perching primly upon the edge of the mattress.

This is not the first time this has happened (nor will it be the last). And, as always, they begin like this:

He offers his hand to the good Doctor, who takes both it and his pulse, a frown creasing the skin between his brows. There’s a quiet sort of fury in his eyes, too, but it doesn’t burn quite bright enough to mask the fear.

"Your heart rate is a little elevated."

"Does that worry you, Doctor?"

"No.” There is a pause. “Though it does indicate a certain level of stress. Are you stressed, Garak?"

“I can’t think why I would be,” he lies. 

“No?” Julian replies. He counts the beats of Garak’s pulse. “Breathe in.” 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

“Breathe out.”  


***

  
This Garak knows:

Out on Adigeon Prime, they built a man. A new one from the fragments of the old. The Wild Type shredded by the TALENs of scientific progress, the result a knock-out in both phenotype and genotype.

And his name is Julian Bashir.  


***

  
“Sit.”

The Doctor takes his pulse. Counts the beats.

Garak’s chest feels tight, and that’s to be expected. So does his throat, and that’s not. That’s new. As are the questions that sit just at the tip of his tongue. The ones relating to Federation laws, and the breaking of them.

“Is this really necessary?” Garak croaks, batting Julian’s hands away as he takes a seat upon the bed.

“Breathe in.”

“Why?”

"Look, Garak, I've already made several concessions for you. I'm unwilling to make any more. Either you do what I tell you, or we go up to the Infirmary."

So Garak complies. The world tilts around him and suddenly he’s flat on his back. Julian’s hands are back at his wrists, pinning him to the mattress.

“One, two, three,” the Doctor counts. “Now breathe out.”  


***

  
Ultimately, it is the fault of one Khan Noonien Singh. Or maybe the people who made him.

Augments don’t breed augments (offspring all Hok, no Sok). But ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds hate, and hate breeds violence.

Starfleet claimed ignorance. Of Julian Bashir. Of Section 31. Of the man in black who lay unclaimed in the morgue, badge and phaser gone.  


***

  
As far as Garak has been able to discover, his life story (abridged) goes like this: Julian Bashir is thirty years old and keeps more secrets than the openness of his face would suggest. If Garak were superstitious, he’d have seen it as some sort of sign. A cosmic joke at his expense. But he isn’t, and Julian’s believed a fair few of his lies, too.

“What made you join Starfleet?” Garak asks as they head towards his quarters.

That isn’t the question he’s really asking. Just like they aren’t really here to treat his wounds; they will heal on their own, given enough time (the physical ones, at least). Yet he thinks of the Incident nonetheless. Of Julian’s hands pressed against the hole in his chest as he lay upon the Promenade floor, and the clatter of the phaser as it slipped from the agent’s fingers.

“It’s what my parents wanted.”

The doors to Garak’s quarters slide back with a hiss, granting the pair entry. The security detail that has dogged Julian’s every step for the past month waits at the threshold.

“What did you want?” Garak asks when they’re inside.

But Julian doesn’t answer. Instead, he locks the door behind them, punching a set of new security codes into the keypad.

“Take off your tunic and wait for me in the bedroom.”

It’s been like this since the day Garak left the Infirmary. Julian orders, he obeys, and they fuck rather than talk about what happened. Their mouths too preoccupied with one another to voice the dangerous thoughts that rattle around the spaces between once silence and the next.

“You’re not Khan, Julian.”

Garak watches as the Doctor’s eyes narrow at the apparent non-sequitur, as though trying to pick out the path that had led to the statement.

It’s the closest they’ve come to the truth of it all. To the shadows of experiments past that loom large behind him, the ghost in the biological machine.

“On the bed, please,” he says. “I won’t ask again.”  


***

  


Julian hadn't seen it coming. Hadn't seen him coming, the man in black.

Black boots.

Black phaser.

Black badge.

But Garak had, because secrets never stay that way for long. Even ones so carefully kept as Julian's.

The shot he'd taken had burned all the way through to the bone. 

***

  
There is no night in space. Just the dimming of light bulbs and the closure of the Replimat.

The station’s asleep. Dr Bashir isn’t. And Garak?

He’s pressed against the mattress, the fabric of the sheets bunching beneath his spine, moaning as Julian fucks him. His hands are pinned above his head, held there with a strength three times that of a normal Human male.

The scales across his chest and back pull uncomfortably as Julian’s grip tightens upon his wrists. He grunts with something that isn’t quite pain and watches as the Doctor’s gaze drops from his eyes to inspect the damage; a shallow valley in the muscles of his chest, mirrored on his back, the scales mis-aligned where they had been hastily zipped back together.

Julian’s tongue traces along the imperfection. And Garak feels... nothing at all. It is as though that section of himself—three inches long, two wide—has disappeared entirely, notable only due to the complete absence of sensation. A void in his scales. One that runs through his chest, a fraction above his heart (which feels entirely too much).

“You’re never to do that again,” Julian says, furious eyes boring into Garak's. “Do you understand me?”

It is a familiar refrain, and Garak nods. He isn’t allowed to talk—not when Julian’s so deep inside him he can hardly think—but there are no rules against lying.

There are some orders he simply can’t obey. Because the thing is, he’d do it again in a heartbeat. Take one to the chest. The head. The gut. Anywhere, really, so long as the outcome is the same.

Dr Bashir lives. And Garak...

“If you'd died, I'd have never forgiven myself,” Julian says.  


***

  
Earth. He’s never been to Earth. It’s where Dr Bashir was born.

Or, rather, it’s where Julian was born. Dr Bashir was born elsewhere.

He has a book about Earth. He picked it up not long after the Federation took Terok Nor.

” _If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat_ ,” Dr Bashir had recited once over a cup of Tarakalean tea. “Sun Tzu. The Art of War.”

Garak’s never been to Adigeon Prime, either; there are no books on the subject.

Sometimes, when Julian’s safely asleep beside him, he wonders how much of the original is still there? Because that’s the more prudent question. Only Garak’s grasp of molecular biology is too tenuous to tell him.  


***

  
Knock-in. Knock-out

 _‘Ding, ding,’_ goes the bell.

Round Two.  


***

  
“Sit,” he says.

And Garak does. He sits upon his bed, hand outstretched, and watches as the Doctor takes his pulse.

They’ve been here before. Once. Twice. As many times are there have been days between then and now, racking up replicates until only one conclusion may be drawn:

That Garak would run to the edge of the world (Cardassia, Earth, Bajor, Adigeon) if Julian told him to.

The truth is there in the details. In the repeats. The replicates as they go round and round like the hands of a clock, or the propellers down in the engine rooms of the ship, the devil in the statistical analysis.  


***

  
He takes his pulse.

"Breathe in."

"And again."

“And again.”

"Don't move, or we'll have to start over."  


***

  
“Did it hurt?” he asks when Julian gives him permission to speak once more. “What they did to you on Adigeon Prime?”

He’s tied to the bed—

No, wait; he’s handcuffed to the bed—

No, wait; he’s not bound at all, simply ordered to stay still.

But, really, it amounts to much the same thing. He is motionless, bound with words rather than rope, his heart pounding in his chest.

Julian’s silent for a moment whilst he thinks, one hand around Garak’s cock, the other working his own.

“I don’t remember.”

***

  
The Protocol:

Cut. Ligate. Transform. Sequence. Repeat.

Ignore the pain.  


***

  
“If you need to take some time, Doctor, I’d understand. There’s a ship heading out to Risa this evening, and another to Earth tomorrow morning.”

The two figures on the screen stand and stare as though frozen. Only the crackle and hiss of the audio tells him the feed is still live. 

“Thank you, Captain, but I must decline. Garak needs me.”

This is a lie. Or half a lie. Or maybe not a lie at all, but the truth, twisted. From Garak's perspective, it's hard to tell.  


***

  


It is Khan’s fault they are afraid of man who couldn’t tie his shoelaces until he was seven.

And Garak’s fault that fear came to nothing.

He has a hole in his chest to prove it.  



End file.
